10 KiB
What is nginx?
nginx (pronounced "engine-x") is an open source reverse proxy server for HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP, POP3, and IMAP protocols, as well as a load balancer, HTTP cache, and a web server (origin server).
TLDR
docker run --name nginx bitnami/nginx
Docker Compose
nginx:
image: bitnami/nginx
Get this image
The recommended way to get the Bitnami nginx Docker Image is to pull the prebuilt image from the Docker Hub Registry.
docker pull bitnami/nginx:latest
To use a specific version, you can pull a versioned tag. You can view the list of available versions in the Docker Hub Registry.
docker pull bitnami/nginx:[TAG]
If you wish, you can also build the image yourself.
git clone https://github.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-nginx.git
cd bitnami-docker-nginx
docker build -t bitnami/nginx .
Hosting a static website
This nginx image exposes a volume at /app. Content mounted here is served by the default catch-all
virtual host. Mounting an empty directory here will copy the default content to your volume.
docker run -v /path/to/app:/app bitnami/nginx
or using Docker Compose:
nginx:
image: bitnami/nginx
volumes:
- /path/to/app:/app
Accessing your server from the host
To access your web server from your host machine you can ask Docker to map a random port on your
host to ports 80 and 443 exposed in the container.
docker run --name nginx -P bitnami/nginx
Run docker port to determine the random ports Docker assigned.
$ docker port nginx
443/tcp -> 0.0.0.0:32768
80/tcp -> 0.0.0.0:32769
You can also manually specify the ports you want forwarded from your host to the container.
docker run -p 8080:80 8443:443 bitnami/nginx
Access your web server in the browser by navigating to http://localhost:8080.
Configuration
Adding custom virtual hosts
The default nginx.conf includes virtual hosts placed in /bitnami/nginx/conf/vhosts/*.conf. You can
mount a directory at /bitnami/nginx/conf/vhosts from your host containing your custom virtual
hosts.
docker run -v /path/to/nginx/vhosts:/bitnami/nginx/conf/vhosts bitnami/nginx
or using Docker Compose:
nginx:
image: bitnami/nginx
volumes:
- /path/to/nginx/vhosts:/bitnami/nginx/conf/vhosts
Full configuration
This container looks for configuration in /bitnami/nginx/conf. You can mount a directory there
with your own configuration, or the default configuration will be copied to your directory if it is
empty.
Step 1: Run the nginx image
Run the nginx image, mounting a directory from your host.
docker run --name nginx -v /path/to/nginx/conf:/bitnami/nginx/conf bitnami/nginx
or using Docker Compose:
nginx:
image: bitnami/nginx
volumes:
- /path/to/nginx/conf:/bitnami/nginx/conf
Step 2: Edit the configuration
Edit the configuration on your host using your favorite editor.
vi /path/to/nginx/conf/nginx.conf
Step 4: Restart nginx
After changing the configuration, restart your nginx container for changes to take effect.
docker restart nginx
or using Docker Compose:
docker-compose restart nginx
Note!
You can also reload the nginx configuration by sending the HUP signal to the container using the
docker kill command.
docker kill -s HUP nginx
or telling Nginx to reload its configuration using the following command:
docker exec nginx nginx -s reload
Enabling Pagespeed module
This image includes the Pagespeed module for Nginx.
In order to activate it, mount the configuration volume following the steps in Full Configuration section above and edit the file located at /path/to/nginx/conf/bitnami/bitnami.conf adding the following snippet inside the server directive:
pagespeed on;
# needs to exist and be writable by nginx
pagespeed FileCachePath /installdir/nginx/var/ngx_pagespeed_cache;
location ~ "\.pagespeed\.([a-z]\.)?[a-z]{2}\.[^.]{10}\.[^.]+" { add_header "" ""; }
location ~ "^/ngx_pagespeed_static/" { }
location ~ "^/ngx_pagespeed_beacon$" { }
location /ngx_pagespeed_statistics { allow 127.0.0.1; deny all; }
location /ngx_pagespeed_message { allow 127.0.0.1; deny all; }
Then, restart Nginx or reload its configuration following the steps in the Restart Nginx section.
Reverse proxy to other containers
nginx can be used to reverse proxy to other containers using Docker's linking system. This is
particularly useful if you want to serve dynamic content through an nginx frontend. Bitnami provides
example virtual hosts for all of our runtime containers in /bitnami/nginx/conf/vhosts/.
Further Reading:
Logging
The Bitnami nginx Docker Image supports two different logging modes: logging to stdout, and logging to a file.
Logging to stdout
The default behavior is to log to stdout, as Docker expects. These will be collected by Docker,
converted to JSON and stored in the host, to be accessible via the docker logs command.
docker logs nginx
or using Docker Compose:
docker-compose logs nginx
This method of logging has the downside of not being easy to manage. Without an easy way to rotate logs, they could grow exponentially and take up large amounts of disk space on your host.
Logging to file
To log to file, run the nginx image, mounting a directory from your host at /bitnami/nginx/logs.
This will instruct the container to send logs to your directory.
docker run --name nginx -v /path/to/nginx/logs:/bitnami/nginx/logs bitnami/nginx
or using Docker Compose:
nginx:
image: bitnami/nginx
volumes:
- /path/to/nginx/logs:/bitnami/nginx/logs
To perform operations (e.g. logrotate) on the logs, mount the same directory in a container designed to operate on log files, such as logstash.
Maintenance
Backing up your container
To backup your configuration and logs, follow these simple steps:
Step 1: Stop the currently running container
docker stop nginx
or using Docker Compose:
docker-compose stop nginx
Step 2: Run the backup command
We need to mount two volumes in a container we will use to create the backup: a directory on your host to store the backup in, and the volumes from the container we just stopped so we can access the data.
docker run --rm -v /path/to/backups:/backups --volumes-from nginx busybox \
cp -a /bitnami/nginx /backups/latest
or using Docker Compose:
docker run --rm -v /path/to/backups:/backups --volumes-from `docker-compose ps -q nginx` busybox \
cp -a /bitnami/nginx /backups/latest
Note!
If you only need to backup configuration, you can change the first argument to cp to
/bitnami/nginx/conf.
Restoring a backup
Restoring a backup is as simple as mounting the backup as volumes in the container.
docker run -v /path/to/backups/latest/conf:/bitnami/nginx/conf \
-v /path/to/backups/latest/logs:/bitnami/nginx/logs \
bitnami/nginx
or using Docker Compose:
nginx:
image: bitnami/nginx
volumes:
- /path/to/backups/latest/conf:/bitnami/nginx/conf
- /path/to/backups/latest/logs:/bitnami/nginx/logs
Upgrade this image
Bitnami provides up-to-date versions of nginx, including security patches, soon after they are made upstream. We recommend that you follow these steps to upgrade your container.
Step 1: Get the updated image
docker pull bitnami/nginx:latest
or if you're using Docker Compose, update the value of the image property to
bitnami/nginx:latest.
Step 2: Stop and backup the currently running container
Before continuing, you should backup your container's configuration and logs.
Follow the steps on creating a backup.
Step 3: Remove the currently running container
docker rm -v nginx
or using Docker Compose:
docker-compose rm -v nginx
Step 4: Run the new image
Re-create your container from the new image, restoring your backup if necessary.
docker run --name nginx bitnami/nginx:latest
or using Docker Compose:
docker-compose start nginx
Testing
This image is tested for expected runtime behavior, using the
Bats testing framework. You can run the tests on your machine
using the bats command.
bats test.sh
Changelog
1.8.0-4-r01 (2015-10-05)
/appdirectory is no longer exported as a volume. This caused problems when building on top of the image, since changes in the volume are not persisted between DockerfileRUNinstructions. To keep the previous behavior (so that you can mount the volume in another container), create the container with the-v /appoption.
Contributing
We'd love for you to contribute to this container. You can request new features by creating an issue, or submit a pull request with your contribution.
Issues
If you encountered a problem running this container, you can file an issue. For us to provide better support, be sure to include the following information in your issue:
- Host OS and version
- Docker version (
docker version) - Output of
docker info - Version of this container (
echo $BITNAMI_APP_VERSIONinside the container) - The command you used to run the container, and any relevant output you saw (masking any sensitive information)
License
Copyright 2015 Bitnami
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.